Bullet Journal Archives

Ready for Take Off: Lessons Learned – January Monthly

January 11, 2018 3 Comments

Lessons Learned from Bullet Journaling

Every month I learn something new from bullet journaling. This month is no different. This month, one of the lessons learned from Bullet Journaling I’ve learned is that open boxes are fun. I did it in my January future log and continued the trend in my January Monthly Calendar. Not all boxes have to be perfect or closed off.

The background art took up more room than I wanted to give at first. But then the colors just seemed so beautiful I couldn’t let them go. So I didn’t fight it and just let things meet where they wanted to meet. I don’t get a lot done the last week of the month anyway right? But the more I look at it, the better I like it. Another lesson learned is that I need to leave room in my life for art and for the ‘things to do’.

(FYI I tried to find the inspiration picture for this spread so I could share it and now I cannot find it anywhere – I looked at it once briefly know how to draw the back of an airplane and I loved how the sunset looked with the clouds) Lesson here: save the picture to your Pinterest board, you so you can find it again.

Intentions Foiled – Ready for Take Off, Anyway

I fully intended to do a whole year’s worth of flowers and foliage and the like as my yearly theme is ‘grow’. However, the transportation theme just built on itself and each doodle became more and more fun (just wait until the mid-month habit check – I think that layout is my absolute favorite for the month). So what can I learn from this seeming mishap? I learned to just let inspiration take place. Crazy that I can learn from bullet journaling, but it seems to have a lot to teach me.

What has Bullet Journaling Taught Me This Month?

I guess you could say that Bullet Journaling has taught me how to compromise. Sometimes what I think is very important at first is actually not important after all. Am I making a big deal about something that truly doesn’t matter why not just be open to new ideas? Who knew a little-dotted notebook could hold such insight in its blank pages? Who knew it held life lessons that years of living have not been able to teach me yet?

I think that all this drawing and journaling and planning have gotten into my brain and tried to make me a better person. I’d better let it do its magic and learn how to compromise in real life. I think I’ll take a cue from my monthly theme and let the good things take off. It’s easier to let things come naturally and not force them. I learned that when creating this month’s group of spreads. Just allow the inspiration to come and learn from it.

Recap: Lessons Learned (just this month!) from Bullet Journaling

Open box design is fun
Leave room in my life for art AND for ‘things to do’
Intentions aren’t always what you need
Intentions don’t always give inspiration
Compromise – if something doesn’t work out the way you want it, don’t just say no at first. You might enjoy it.
Allow yourself to become a better person

Question:

What unexpected objects have inspired your life lessons? Let me know in the comments below!

Watch the process video below for how I painted/set up this page.

Remember to plan your life so you live beautifully and don’t be afraid to find your inner muse.

~Tricia

January Week #1 Bicycle Weekly – Using Objects in your Design

January 5, 2018 3 Comments

Using Objects in your Weekly Layout

Bicycle Weekly

I love the idea of using objects as functional pieces of my layout. I call this one ‘Bicycle Weekly’. Just so it adds some extra flair to the page and changes it up. Especially for the weeks I don’t have a lot of plans. This week was perfect because the kids wouldn’t go back to school until Thursday. So I used the big wheel from the bike to track weekly ‘to dos’ and appointments, the small wheel for dinner meal plans. I’m not saying that every week should be like this, but it is fun for a change every once in a while.

Question:

Do you have any objects you’ve included in your bullet journal as part of your design? What’s your favorite? Or do you have one that you want to include but just can’t find a way?

Bicycle Weekly: Turning objects into functional designs in your bullet journal: bicycle spokes for a weekly layout:

This Week’s Layout

This week I sketched out the circles and added details to the penny farthing bike (I think that’s what it’s called). The tiny 7 boxes on the right are so I can include flower doodles – which I want to start learning to draw. As you saw on the welcome page for 2018/January (or if you haven’t seen it, view it here). You can also watch an overview wrapping up December and the January’s spreads planned out. For those of you who are nervous about creating circles – never fear! I am working on a post to put your mind at ease when creating circles.

Monthly Theme: Transportation

This month’s theme is transportation. I was going to do superheroes but somehow the bullet train found its way in and that was it. I came up with a different type of transportation for each week. The last week I was running out of ideas – and I just could not get that cruise ship to look like a cruise ship! Ah well.

Here is the Plan With Me Video – watch below and if you’d like to see more, subscribe on YouTube. I already drew out the circles, so now it was adding details to make it look like a bike.

Just Keep Pedaling

Through writing this post, I’ve come up with several other ideas to help you in your bullet journal journey. I’m very excited for them (you might even get a sneak peek of my very first entry in my first attempt at bullet journaling!) My bullet journal has become a companion of sorts. It makes the adventure even better (in my opinion, of course). I’ve always needed some sort of notebook or planner but I have never found one that speaks…well…. speaks my language. I think bullet journaling and I soul mates. Did I just say that? Well if it’s posted on the internet, it’s true, right?!

I hope you have a fabulous week!

Remember to plan your life so you live beautifully.

~Tricia

Why Use a Future Log – Even If It’s Late.

January 2, 2018 3 Comments

Happy New Year! Why Use a Future Log – even if you’re late starting

I recorded many videos the middle of December – and didn’t have them all ready to go – some until this morning. I wanted to do it, but there was just something keeping me from completing it. Not sure if it was that little voice of doubt in the back of my head, if I didn’t have the right kind of music playing in the background, or if I simply wanted to watch some more of those good ‘ole classic Christmas movies. I want to represent to you that planning can take place anytime, even if you miss a big date like January 1.

Do you ever feel that way? I have seen so many people say the same thing for planning. Here’s your question – why use a future log if it’s starting later than the ideal date?

Want to see an overview for my month? Read the post here & watch the pre-planning video.

Future Planning Can Take Place at Any Time – Even if You Missed A Big Date

Planning can take place at any time. Even if you missed January 1 or the start of a month. I want you to rest assured that just because you missed the first day to ‘go live’ with your plans, it doesn’t mean that you have to scrap the idea. Pick up where you are and move forward. I am here to tell you that it is perfectly ok. Our lives are not perfect nor are our plans. Real life gets in the way of a perfectly planned one. But don’t let that stand in your way, make plans anyway, no matter when you start.

Bullet Journaling Taught me it was Okay to Move Forward

Believe it or not, And what’s more, taught me to accept it. I used to worry about making a mistake and wanting to rip out pages from the bound book. (Though I never would rip out a page because it would compromise the integrity of the stitching in the book and further ruin it.) Planning petrified me because I wanted the start date to be perfect, my writing to be immaculate, and everything laid out ‘just so’. On my first bullet journal, I messed up on the first line of text. I learned to accept whiteout and move on.

I’ve been really mulling that concept over – and even more so when a perfect stranger reached out to me for advice on how to start. I gave my advice and then I started thinking about the advice I would give myself. I think I will be developing a series dedicated to such thinking. You’ll notice in my video below that I mess up on the lines starting with October.

Bullet Journal Future Log - Why use a log if you are late starting

Here’s My Advice for Starting:

When starting a journal, don’t worry about all the things. 1) Start with A future log, 2) a monthly calendar and try out a 3) weekly log to start. I don’t plan enough to do a daily log, so I don’t. That’s it. Start with just those three. Then you’ll find that you want to include other ideas in your journal. Those become collections.

Here’s my advice when you start late on planning:

Plan anyway. It will be ok. If it makes you feel better, do a future log starting from January (no matter where you are in the year) and work forward. That’s what I did in my first bullet journal. I started in April and it felt weird to start my future log in April, so I included January-March for good measure and wrote down big events that happened in those months as a review then I started my first monthly with April.

Once you turn the page, it’s not going to matter. And the last piece of advice: it will be an evolution. Your style will evolve. You will become more comfortable with what you like and don’t like, so I would say skip the frills for the first bit and just focus on including the things you want to include on your spreads (trackers, all the days on one page, a place for meal planning, etc.)

Why Use a Future Log – Even If You Are Moving to a New Journal Soon

I’d like to present my Future Log – I decided to include a future log in this planner even though I would be in this book for just a couple more months. For one thing, I reaaaaally wanted to include a bullet train in my bullet journal since my monthly theme was transportation based. For another thing, I thought I might be more free-minded with my future planning if I knew I would move to a new journal. I would write things I actually wanted to do instead of just the things that I had to do. In this case, I will appoint wishes versus musts.

So here are some reasons why you should use a Future Log even if it’s in the middle of a journal or in the middle of the year:

Plan the future – yes, please! Plan the future in front of you and not the past behind. You want to start something because you want to just do it already, but you are letting your past hold you back. So what if you didn’t start on an ideal day? Make today be that ideal day.
Don’t miss big dates – who wants that?
Dream Big – writing something down makes it more real in your mind, chances are if it is on the calendar, you might work a little harder to achieve it. Even if you migrate it, that dream just became a goal.
Add your goals so you are working on an actual timeline instead of a mystical date in your head.

4 Reasons to Future Log even if you start planning late in your Bullet Journal

For the Set-Up: Watercolor – with Markers?

Trying out some new techniques for watercoloring this month – with Crayola Super Tip Markers. It’s a really fun technique and I think this would work for most other markers too – like the Tombow dual brush tip markers.The super tips are really inexpensive and now are more versatile in my life. There are specific marker palettes that you can use, but a simple dinner plate works well for me. I’ve also thought that a piece of transparency film would work well too if you didn’t have a smooth finish plate you could claim from your kitchen.

Watch the video below for how I set up my future log. I’d love to know what your future planner looks like. I’m going to brainstorm some ideas and showcase a few of my favorites in a post to come.

Remember to plan your life so you live beautifully.

~Tricia

2018 in a word: Grow

January 1, 2018 6 Comments

In November I started thinking about where I wanted to go in 2018. I’ve never had a theme for a year let alone a ‘word’ for the year. 2017 has been so momentous for me. It’s a wonderful feeling to rediscover yourself and finally feel like you are on the path of goodness in your life. That’s where 2017 led me. I found it by bullet journaling and once I started that, the creativity bubbled out once again. So why is my word for 2018 Grow?

Why ‘Grow’?

I tucked my creativity away years ago – I just let life take over and honestly, those were a few miserable years. I call those the dark ages of my life. Once I found creativity, doodling, lettering, journaling, all enabled through Bullet Journaling, it was like a light opened and shined down like rays of sunshine on my soul.

Once this miraculous thing happened to me, I felt the need to spread this joy to others. Astounding changes started happening in my life. I truly felt the need to spread this experience to others who are stumbling through the dark ages of their own lives and I wanted to help them rediscover the creativity that was once lost.

What’s Next?

I would like to grow further. There are so many ways I want to grow. Grow a business, grow in my talents, grow spiritually, Essentially as a person, I want to enhance myself and become a better person. That is what “Grow” means to me.

I am not saying my journey is complete, but I would like to gather others along the way, grow with them and inspire them to grow on their own. I’m excited to start a year of growth and see where I end up at the end of 2018.

Read the pre-planning post for 2018 & watch the video to get a sneak peek of my weekly & monthly set up for January 2018.

Question:

Do you have a word or a phrase for the coming year? What’s your take on a ‘word’ for the year?

Watch the Video below to see my Hello 2018, Hello January Spread in my Bullet Journal.

Remember to plan your life so you live beautifully.

~Tricia

2018: Bullet Journal Plan with Me January & December Wrap-Up

December 29, 2017 7 Comments

January 2018 Planner Walk-Through

Planners rejoice the time has come for New Year Bullet Journal Planning! This is like the Christmas for planners. But most planners I know get planner items for Christmas. It’s a whole thing. There are a lot of bullet journalists who are moving into a new notebook at the start of a new year. Alas, I look longingly at the new notebooks lovingly set aside for such a momentous occasion and know that I will be continuing in my current notebook for another two months.

I did not let this dissuade me from planning out 2018 complete with a future log and everything. Like December, I decided to plan the whole month out in advance rather than week-to-week. I liked the grand overview of everything complete for the month and then the snippets of art and creativity are woven throughout the month.

Sneak Peek

Let it be known, I am not good at keeping surprises or secrets. I like to be told what is going to happen. The video below gives sneak peeks, but the image below does even better and the peeking. I don’t give too much away in the images below but just enough. Be sure to visit back as I update each week’s spread with a new video and a walk-through.

New Watercolor Techniques

I’ve been trying some new techniques for watercoloring with markers (yes, I said it – watercoloring with markers. Crayola Supertips to be exact) – and I really like it. I get the colors and the look of a watercolor piece, but I don’t end up with the watercolor paint texture on the pages which can also result in the watercolor paint chipping off the page because the pages bend.

The other thing I really like about this technique is that I can write over the pages much easier. With watercolor paints, I could only write on them with certain pens afterward because there was only a select few that would ‘stick’ to the paint. If I desire watercolor in my bullet journal, I will most likely use markers. Yes, good old-fashioned Crayola Super Tip Markers.

Plan with Me Video: January 2018 & December 2017 Wrap- Up

Here is the planning video reviewing December 2018 and revealing the January 2018 set-up. Let me know how you’ve set up your 2018 in the comments below.

Remember to plan your life so you live beautifully.

~Tricia